Blackberry makers spared US shut off

Blackberry owners in the US have been given a brief reprise following a judge’s deciding to not impose an immediate injunction

24 February 2006 20:25 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Blackberry owners in the US have been given a brief reprise following a judge's deciding to not impose an immediate injunction and thereby close the service.

The decision, had it gone the other way, would have meant that thousands of workers in the US would have had to face Monday morning without email on the go.

However Blackberry, who is currently embroiled in a patent infridgement case with NTP isn't out of the woods yet. The Judge presiding over the case said he would consider an injunction in the future.

He said that RIM had infringed NTP's patents and that he would rule on an injunction as "soon as reasonably possible".

Earlier this month Blackberry's owners, the Canadian Research in Motion, published details of how it would circumvent any patent infringement with a “work around”.

"RIM's workaround provides a contingency for our customers and partners and a counterbalance to NTP's threats. This will hopefully lead to more reasonable negotiations since NTP risks losing all future royalties if the workaround is implemented”, the company said in a statement.

The UK is not affected by the outcome, however in America over 3 million customers would have lost the ability to collect email on the go.

The company has recently launched a new handheld - the 8700 in the UK.

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Phones, Mobile phones, RIM, Biz, AMD, Intel